Student Scientific Research within Communities-of-Practice

Genet, Russell M. and Armstrong, James D. and Blanko, Philip and Boyce, Grady and Boyce, Pat and Brewer, Mark and Buchheim, Robert and Calanog, Jae and Castaneda, Diana and Chamberlin, Rebecca and Clark, R. Kent and Collins, Dwight and Conti, Dennis and Cormier, Sebastien and Fitzgerald, Michael T. and Estrada, Chris and Estrada, Reed and Freed, Rachel and Gomez, Edward L. and Hardersen, Paul and Harshaw, Richard and Johnson, Jolyon and Kafka, Stella and Kenney, John and Mohanan, Kakkala and Ridgely, John and Rowe, David and Silliman, Mark and Stojimirovic, Irena and Tock, Kalee and Walker, Douglas and Wallen, Vera
(2017)
Student Scientific Research within Communities-of-Practice.
In:
Proceedings for the 36th Annual Conference of the Society for Astronomical Sciences.
Society for the Astronomical Sciences, pp. 143-149.

Abstract

Social learning theory suggests that students who wish to become scientists will benefit by being active researchers early in their educational careers. As coauthors of published research, they identify themselves as scientists. This provides them with the inspiration, motivation, and staying power that many will need to complete the long educational process. This hypothesis was put to the test over the past decade by a one-semester astronomy research seminar where teams of students managed their own research. Well over a hundred
published papers coauthored by high school and undergraduate students at a handful of schools substantiated this hypothesis. However, one could argue that this was a special case. Astronomy, after all, is supported by a large professional-amateur community-of-practice. Furthermore, the specific area of research—double star astrometry—was chosen because the observations could be quickly made, the data reduction and analysis was straight forward, and publication of the research was welcomed by the Journal of Double Star Observations. A recently initiated seminar development and expansion program—supported in part by the National Science Foundation—is testing a more general hypothesis that: (1) the seminar can be successfully adopted by many
other schools; (2) research within astronomy can be extended from double star astrometry to time series
photometry of variable stars, exoplanet transits, and asteroids; and (3) the seminar model can be extended to a
science beyond astronomy: environmental science—specifically atmospheric science. If the more general
hypothesis is also supported, seminars that similarly feature published high school and undergraduate student